THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE
I'llatograpli by uiistav ieurlin
ALARM CLOCK AND MORNING PAPER, TOO, IS THE DANISH MILKMAN
The visitor to almost any small town in Denmark is awakened by the milkman's bell.
Housewives and children meet him with containers which he fills from a tap in the rear of the
wagon, meanwhile recounting the latest news of the neighborhood.
the thief could not possibly be caught so
long as the night watchman clogged about
the streets singing the hours. So he was
ordered to stop his song and to wear rubber
boots instead of his wooden clogs.
No sooner had the tunes and clatter
ceased than all the good townsfolk were
struck by a distressing malady, insomnia.
It was too quiet to sleep! The question
was whether the people were to be robbed
of their sleep or their money. Finally,
the town elders were forced to compromise.
The watchman was to retain his rubber
boots (a moral victory for the elders, you
see), but was to resume his singing that
found such favor with Morpheus. Once
again Ribe slept soundly.
THE DEVIL'S PRIVATE ENTRANCE
A cat-head door leads into the transept
of the cathedral. That door, so called be
cause of a large cat's head in its center, was
built as a private entrance for the Devil,
who was permitted in the cathedral on dark
nights when it was empty. Such conces
sions were often made by medieval church
builders as a peace offering so the Evil
One, in his anger at the construction of
another church, would not hamper building.
Even in daylight the people of Ribe cast
furtive glances at the unholy entrance as
they pass, and they say that on a dark night,
if one walks around the cathedral three
times and then shouts through the keyhole
in the cat-head door, the portal will fall
back and His Majesty of the Black Robes
will come forth.
A TOWN THE WORLD PASSES BY
Four days in Ribe are not nearly enough;
its mire of philosophic calm threatened to
make me forget there are other places in
Denmark. So I cycled north and west to
Esbjerg, a comparatively new city, a fishing
center and the principal seaport in west
ern Jutland. It has a vigor and a shine
to it, suggesting a small American city.
From its docks you can see the little
island of Fan0 across the narrows, lying as
if it were the far shore of a broad river.
It is only fifteen minutes by ferry to
Nordby, a provincial little town on the
northern tip of the island. My first im
pression was that I had landed in another